


Not Yet

by TheonSugden



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alexandria Safe-Zone, Caryl, F/M, Food, Gen, mentions of child abuse, mentions of domestic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheonSugden/pseuds/TheonSugden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol tells Daryl her fears about the Anderson family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Yet

Carol had just taken a hot sheet of cookies out of the oven when Daryl popped two in his mouth, one in each hand. 

“You’ll burn the roof of your mouth,” Carol warned, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Gonna have to find a cookie tree soon,” he muttered as he licked his fingers.

“I know,” she finished as she began cleaning the counter and stove, more to keep herself busy than from any need for a household regimen. 

“Who these for?”

“Well, they’re for you, apparently,” she teased, before her face hardened. “And…for Sam Anderson.”

Daryl’s contented grimace quickly turned to concern. He tried to hide it, but Carol knew him like the back of her hand.

“I know, Daryl. I’m not. _I’m not._ Not after…”

She didn’t have to remind him of the children she’d lost, even if he didn’t know, if no one could ever know, what those losses had done to her.

“I just…it’s complicated.”

Daryl grunted.

“It ain’t complicated. You just don’t wanna tell me.”

That made her angry, but she couldn’t deny it. She should tell him. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was best to keep as much as she could to herself. She knew she would have died years ago otherwise.

“I’m scared for him, alright?” she admitted. “I can’t help it.”

She couldn’t tell him that she’d had a nightmare of Sophia asking for help and the neighbors shouting at her, the way she had at Sam. She’d been trying to protect herself, even trying to protect Sam, when she’d threatened him, tried to keep him away, but on some level she wondered if this was an excuse, if she was just a coward.

“I won’t let this happen again,” she said, more to herself than to Daryl.

“Who?” Daryl said, suddenly next to her. “Who’s doin’ it?”

Carol found herself shaking for a second, before she pulled it back together, got back to wiping and washing.

“His father. I think he’s hurting his wife. Jessie. Pete and Jessie. I don’t think it’s Sam…yet”

_It was never Sophia, yet, but it would have been, any day, any minute…as soon as you weren’t there to stop it…_

“I’ll kill him,” Daryl said, quiet and low. Quiet and low was when Carol knew he was at his most dangerous.

“Not yet,” she replied, as much to herself as Daryl. “I mean, I don’t even know, but…I know. I know. I just do.”

Daryl was quiet then.

“Ain’t nobody gonna hurt that boy. Or you.”

He couldn’t look her in the eye, and she was grateful, because that way he couldn’t see the weakness in them.

“Gotta go meet Aaron,” he mumbled, grabbing his vest from a nearby chair.

“Daryl,” she started, knowing he trusted Aaron, knowing that, as much as she liked Aaron and Eric, that she wouldn’t be able to convince him trusting was a weakness. “Please don’t…”

“I won’t,” he promised. “Not yet.”

She knew he meant it.

Clumsily looking for something else to say, a distraction, she glanced down at the plate of still-hot cookies.

“I ain’t hungry,” he replied, slamming the door behind him.

It was out of anger at Pete, she knew, at the Pete in his own broken childhood, at all fathers and husbands of the world who talk with their fists.

Some small part of her still wondered if he could stop himself. If she wouldn’t go outside and find Pete torn in pieces across the town square.

As she put the cookies in a plastic container for Sam, she tried not to think of how much she wanted to do the job herself. 

“Another day,” she promised, tasting one of the cookies to see if they’d come out right.

She nodded appreciatively before closing the lid.

Not perfect, but close enough. 


End file.
